User blog:Icydice/Random blog ignore
K. Banning Kellum to me 26 minutes agoDetails Alright, just finished reading this one over, so let's not "dick around" any longer, let's stroke our egos a bit with some hard feedback. Just for starters, I laughed my ass off during this entire story. I had to hold it in a bit because I am at work, but had I been at home, the 'LOL' acronym would have actually been an accurate description. Without a doubt this story is NSFW, at least by the Creepypasta Wiki standards. Not sure how sites like Reddit treat their "bolder" stories, but the wiki would require that category no doubt. The grammar was spot-on for the most part. I do recall seeing a sentence start with a lower-case letter, but when I went back to find it I couldn't. I'd suggest just running it through spell-check one more time and look for the red squiggly lines. Since this is being told from a first person, conversation perspective, I wouldn't aim for perfect structural grammar. The one piece of advice that I would give is to look up some alternative words for "penis." It's repeated a lot in the story, and while I understand that there are only so many ways to describe a dick, I'd at least consider rotating them here and there to break up the repetition. Plot/content wise, as I stated above, I found it hilarious, and I think it demonstrates your talent for dark humor literature. I have a few suggestions though, which I'll list below: 1. Change the title. I'd leave the title a bit more vague, something related to masturbation but not a dead give away. Maybe call it "My Own Petit Mal," which is plays on the French term for orgasm, translating to "little death." (This is based on the belief that at the moment of orgasm, our hearts stop.) This title sounds very formal and will set the reader up to think they're about to embark on some nuanced horror journey only to find out you've been teasing their balls the whole time. The title is just a suggestion, but I remember getting criticism for my story "They Hate Us and Want Us to Die" because the title literally gives away the plot. 2. I would avoid labeling your character as a teenager at any point, and might even suggest removing the rather childlike joy of being home alone from the start; or at the very least make the character's age known before you bring up masturbation. The idea of a story about a teenager masturbating could potentially stir up the wrong idea about your story. 3. I would pull back on the gore just a bit, or make the gore itself more comical in nature. Mentioning puss and boils is fine, but over use of gore can be seen as "lazy" or "writing for effect," as opposed to using the prose and character dialogue to steer the reader's emotional reactions. 4.Just my opinion, but I would change the last paragraph. It strays away from the comedic pacing that you've maintained throughout the entire story. I'm not against the idea of closing this out as a cautionary tale, but I'd use less serious tone to do so. Plus, (because readers will literally chase any idea regardless of how wrong they are) I can predict the possibility that someone will spin this as a clever way to shove a moral down the reader's throat or perhaps even accuse you of being some straight edge Christian in real life trying to use a horror platform to lecture people about porn addiction or masturbation. Believe me, when I wrote "Queen Justine and the Cutest Little Shing," a story that's plot is centered around politics, I was accused of trying to slip my own beliefs into the minds of my readers through writing. 5. Disregard this one if you already looked into this, but I think (just from what I've heard) that cutting off the penis is one of those pretty quick bleed-out scenarios. I might be thinking of the balls though, but I know one or the other (or both maybe) open up a pretty major vessel that leads to one of the fastest deaths by blood loss. I'd consider looking into that, and if so, change up how he manages to survive long enough to be rescued. Besides those five points above, I really enjoyed this story. I do believe 100% that it is a great little piece, but I do wonder if it's the best fit for the Wiki. Don't get me wrong, I fully support you posting it there, but I would suggest showing it to at least one other admin, maybe Helel, and get his thoughts. I don't think it's so much the plot that would cause it to be removed, but rather how few traditional elements of horror are in the story itself. Still though, I wouldn't suggest adding more "horror stuff" just to fill it out, because I think you pretty much nailed it and would hate to see the story suffer from too many suggestions being added. Even if it doesn't make it on the Wiki, I'd suggest posting it somewhere. I feel like there has to be a subreddit for this kind of story. Anyway, big congrats on maintaining a fair degree of tasteful prose in a story that makes tasteful prose almost impossible. I think I've said this to you once before, but if not, I'll say it again. Dark humor is a very difficult style to do well, and you certainly have that skill. My best attempt at dark humor was "Dinner with Vivianna," but even that came off more as just a story with a lighthearted approach and comedic themed settings and dialogue. You seem to have a good understanding of the elements and the genre. I loved the slightly clever nods to other famous Creepypastas, like "Normal Porn for Normal People." Well, that about sums it up. Overall I love it. I beta read a lot of stories for people, and this one certainly didn't feel like a beta read, but rather just a fun story with lots of wit and laughs. I hope the advice is helpful, and best of luck with posting it. Best Regards, Banning PS: If you work in a joke about John Wayne Bobbitt, you'll be the greatest human on earth! Category:Blog posts